Children of the Pipes
by Fire.Blazing.In.Her.Eyes
Summary: On April 1st, 2015, an alien force bombed the Earth. The only survivors are a group of children, hanging onto existence by a thread in post-apocalyptic London. Constantly haunted by earthquakes, disease, and creatures habituating the dark corners of their minds, they must stay together if they want to have even a faint chance of survival. / Post-apocalyptic AU. Rating may change.


**A/N:** One thing I need to point out before we start the story: All the characters are sort of OCs, but they are all extremely similar to the characters they represent, so you'll be able to tell who's actually who very easily. I'll try and update as fast as I can, and I probably will update pretty speedily, as I have an insanely high amount of muse for this story right now.

He could remember little bits and pieces of it, when he sat alone, staring outside into the ash and ruin. How the bombs, careening out of the sky like downed ducks, really looked a lot like fireworks if you thought about it. And how, that if you imagined they really were fireworks, it didn't seem so horrible. In fact, if you blocked out all the screams, and the crying, you were almost convinced it was a celebration. Funny, that. He didn't think people would ever celebrate the end of the world. He could remember how everyone was screaming, screaming much louder than he had ever heard anyone scream before. Screams filled with pain, terror, and so many other abhorrent emotions, blended and melded into one absolutely ghastly feeling. He wasn't sure what to call it, or if it was a thing at all, but he did know he never, _ever_ wanted to feel something like that again. Most unfortunately, he could also remember the death. At the time, he was in such a daze that he couldn't think of anything else but getting away, not even as he tripped over countless lifeless bodies, but now that his adrenaline had faded away, it was as clear as day in his mind. There was so much blood, and guts, and missing limbs, and even bodies so horrifically mauled it was hard to tell if they were even people anymore, but rather just masses of blood and mutilated meat. He had never seen so much red, and since then the color red made his stomach lurch, and an uneasy wariness settle over him. The problem with that was the fact that there was red everywhere; red in the fire, red in the blood, and even red in the air. He was now thoroughly convinced that red was an even more evil color than black; black represented despair, loneliness, and evil, while red was all death and hurt and massacre. And it was in these times when all the memories stirred when he would start to feel the blackness creep over him, and he would have to dig his dirty fingernails into his skin just to keep a hold on himself, and sometimes he dug so deep he broke skin, and tiny little pinpricks of blood would well up where his hand had been, which further reinforced his theory of red coming from black, and black coming from red. Sometimes even seeing himself bleed didn't help much, and a few stray salty tears would trickle down his face, gathering dirt and grime as they dripped down, leaving a path of clean skin in their wake. And then they were gathered up, pushed away by a sleeve or the back of a filth-caked hand. For even when he was alone, the strong unspoken rule that governed all boys and all men lay inside him: tears are weakness, and weakness is bad. But still, he told himself, he had just witnessed hundreds of thousands of people drop dead before him, which may or may not have included his parents. That was a good enough reason to cry. And still, he would dismiss the tears as silly and swallow them, and he would stand up and go far a walk, maybe look for food, or count the bodies that lay on the street. Sometimes he would travel to what was left of the river Thames to at least try washing up or to skip rocks, sometimes to just stare at his reflection. At that moment, he was tired of remembering, and he stood up from the worm-eaten wooden ground and made his way out of the crumbly shack he had deemed as his temporary headquarters without breathing as much as a sigh, simply listening to the crunch of his bare feet on the mixture of earth and concrete that covered most of the ground now. Hands dug deep in the warm recesses of his pockets, he watched his breath curl up like smoke as he picked his way carefully over the rubble and debris that covered the once-busy streets of London. Nowadays, there was never anyone (at least, no one _alive_) on the streets. Silvery-blue eyes roved the toppling houses and shops, and rough hands pushed white-blonde bangs out of his face. A sudden crash echoed from a surprisingly half-intact house to his left, and he stopped in his tracks. Reaching blindly for a piece of dull steel that was stuck in between two pieces of concrete, he wielded the weapon like a baseball bat and creeped slowly forward, gulping once. Edging inside the doorway, he could hear the faint, angry muttering of some person within the house. Readjusting his grip on the skinny piece of metal, he called into the void of black within the shack,

"A-anyone here? Show yourself!" Scuffling echoed across to him from a corner in the room, and a stout, wide figure stumbled out from behind a bookcase. Taking a few stumbling steps backward, his grip grew tighter on his makeshift weapon as he drew back, preparing to strike. The thing held up one hand, still coming forward and coughing. It spoke, but he couldn't make out the words, because of something long that looked a little like a beak covering it's face. It pulled the beak off, and continued speaking, in a wheezy voice,

"-stubbed my toe on tha' bloody bookcase...been hidin' out 'ere for while now and-" the boy paused, staring at his own shocked face, and pushed his massive round spectacles up the bridge of his nose. "Wot chu starin' at? You look like you've seen a ghost or somefink. What's your name, anyways?"

He stood there for a moment, swimming in the utter realization that he couldn't remember his own name. He hadn't spoken to anyone for five days at least, and hadn't really been thinking much at all. Biting his lip, he stared at his own grubby feet for another moment before looking up, it coming back to him with a start.

"Daniel. My names Daniel," he paused for a moment, as if to let it sink in, "You can call me Danny, though, if you like." The larger boy nodded thoughtfully, repeating the name softly to himself a few times. He looked at Danny expectantly, but he missed the hint and walked past the boy, inspecting the room with his hands perched on his skinny hips, steel pipe left on the wormeaten floor, forgotten. The other boy waddled over, persisting,

"I don't care much what they call me. Long as they don't call me what they did at school," he said nonchalantly, probing for attention. Danny made an inquiring sound, the open-ended sentence catching his curiosity. The other boy looked around a few times, even though there was no one around. He leaned closer, uttering the nickname in a harsh whisper,

"Porkchop." Danny looked at him with a blank expression for half a second, before a wide grin took over and he doubled over laughing, gasping for breath.

"_Porkchop?!_" he cried, looking up at him from under his fringe, hands on his knees. "Porkchop" grumbled to himself and cleaned his glasses on the edge of his grungy shirt.

"'S not funny," he mumbled, looking down at Danny with hurt eyes, who, unsympathetically, was rolling around on the floor, clutching his sides. Porkchop huffed angrily and crossed his chubby arms, waiting impatiently for Danny to finish laughing. His bouts slowly faded, and soon he was back on his feet, struggling to stifle a few lingering giggles.

"So, un,..._Porkchop_. How long have you been hiding out here?" his stomach growled, and he questioned again, more urgent, "Got any food?" Porkchop sighed again and dug in his pockets, protruding again with a handful of wrapped sweets. Danny greedily grabbed a few and hastily shoved them in his mouth, muttering a bleary thanks as the sustenance of carbohydrates and sugars washed over his fatigued body. He stepped carefully over the nails and pieces of glass littering the floor as he made his way over to a scattering of boxes grouped together in a corner, and began rummaging through them noisily. Porkchop walked over and leaned against the wall next to him, watching with a bored expression;

"I've been here for a while, a few days, actually. Haven't had time to search the place, since I've been looking for food." Danny nodded once and continued rummaging through, setting aside some items as he searched. Laughing to himself, he brought up a brass trumpet from the bottom of one box, the bell of the thing blackened with ash. He glanced up at his companion, a cheeky grin on his face. Porkchop shrugged, obviously not impressed, but suddenly his brown eyes grew bright and he exclaimed excitedly,

"Danny! We could use that to see if there's anyone else out there! We can call 'em with that!" Danny looked down at the dull trumpet skeptically, but he shrugged and took a deep breath, bringing the instrument to his lips. A deep, booming note arose out of it, echoing in the two boys' ears and reverberating throughout the tumbledown house and the wrecked street outside. Danny laughed once, a sound more of surprise than humor, and stood up, looking towards the door. The two stood there, staring, for a minute or two, until the unmistakable sound of footsteps pattered outside. They grew closer, until the figure of a small boy, about six or so, stood in the doorway. Obviously unfazed by the strange noise, he trotted over and stood on one foot, staring up at the two elder boys expectantly. Danny looked down at him awkwardly, chewing on his lower lip, and Porkchop sighed exasperatedly and leaned down until he was level with the small urchin,

"What's your name?"

The boy grinned, flashing a set of small, pearly white teeth, complete with a front tooth missing.

"Mickey."

Porkchop nodded once, repeating the name again to himself, before standing up, noticing the small crowd of young boys that had gathered in the room since. Mickey took his cue and moved to the side, sitting on one of the overturned boxes. Danny stood in the back of the room, watching with a small, bemused smile as Porkchop took names, and as more and more little boys trooped in. Most of them were eight and nine, but there were a few older boys, though not as old as Danny or Porkchop. The oldest were Connor and Aaron, both 11, two twins who were identical in almost every way, down to the cheeky grins on their faces. The only way to tell them apart (and still, you couldn't be sure) was that Aaron's hair got in his eyes more, and Connor's eyes were slightly lighter than Aaron's, although this didn't help much. While he was musing about the technicalities of this, the number of boys streaming in trickled down until they were all gathered together, looking awkwardly at one another. Danny stepped forward at a pointed glance from Porkchop, and was about to speak, but stood in mid-motion, mouth slightly opened, as he stared, eyes narrowed, out the door. In the distance, a large group of tall, shadowy figures loomed in the distance, clambering rather ungracefully over pieces of rubble, until at last they came to a stop in the threshold. In the front of the procession was a tall, skinny boy with flaming red hair, which stood out bright, even in the shadow of the room. His eyes, icy blue, stared around the room, scrutinizing every face, before coming to a halt on Danny's own silver-blue orbs. The tall boy smirked and said, in a drawling, bored voice that clearly gave the impression that he was used to being listened to,

"Where's the man with the megaphone?"

Danny stepped forward,

"There's no man. Just me. And no megaphone, either," he said, holding up the ash-spotted trumpet and pointing at it. The boy sniffed disdainfully and opened his mouth to speak, but at that moment one of the smaller boys in the choir swayed, and fell face-forwards onto the wood. A collective gasp rose, and some of the boys standing next to him picked him up by the armpits and propped him up against a box. Upon closer investigation, Danny noticed that his left arm was in a makeshift cloth sling, and the cloth, which must've been white at some time, was now stained red with blood and brown with dirt and soot. The boy with red hair rolled his eyes and waved the boys that had helped him away with a hand,

"Aw, let him alone. Gavin's always pulling a faint, with that arm of his."

The boys obeyed, and fell back into line.

"So there's no adults at all, then?" continued the boy with red hair, and Danny nodded. The boy grinned to himself and elbowed the shorter boy next to him,

"Shame." The other boy chuckled darkly, and the red-haired boy looked up again,

"Let's get names, then."

Danny opened his mouth to speak, but Porkchop butted in,

"We've been takin' names. That's Connor and Aaron, they're twins, and-"

"Oh, shove it, fatty. No one cares," he taunted, voice dripping with venom. The group laughed, and Danny grinned and spoke over the collective noise,

"His name's not Fatty, it's Porkchop!"

The laughter grew into a roar, and even the serious boy next to red-hair was doubled over laughing. Porkchop busied himself with his glasses, face flushed red. Soon enough it died down, and the boy with red hair eyed Danny with new respect,

"Who're you, then?"

"Danny."

"Oh. Well, I'm Hugh, and this is Kavana," he continued, motioning to the dark boy next to him, who said nothing, and only glanced around at the group intimidatingly, his muddy eyes glinting with evil. Hugh went around to introduce the rest of the group, which included those who follow:

Fane, a tall boy with messy dark brown hair and bright eyes, who seemed to have a cheerful grin permanently etched on his face.

Ajax, a rather short boy with prominent muscles, heavy jaw, and a scowl, the physique of a boxer, and eyed everyone with equal discrimination.

Jacob, a shy kid with mousey brown hair and a demure expression, who, like Kavana, gave no acknowledgement.

Kaden, who was too busy laughing with the boy next to him to give any sort of signal;

Jonathan, a medium-sized boy with fair hair and an ordinary complexion, and was completely absorbed with whatever he and Kaden were whispering about, gesturing dramatically;

And finally, the boy who had fainted was now awake, smiled pallidly, and declared slowly that his name was Gavin, even though it had already been made apparent by Hugh, although, of course, he wasn't aware of this. Danny smiled at him fleetingly, before turning his attention back to the group,

"So...I think we'd better stick together. I mean, we've all gathered here anyways, and it be daft to go out again. We need food, too, and shelter..look, if we all split up again, we'd just be wandering around for nothing," he paused, looking around at all the eager faces staring up at him, glad they were following him, even after his poor excuse for a speech, "And if we do that, we ought to have a leader, or something like that."

Hugh instantly saw that moment as his moment of glory, and stepped forwards, chest puffed out with pride,

"I ought to be leader. I'm leader of my lot, and back at school I was head boy and chapter chorister. And I could..I mean, uh, _can_ sing C sharp," he declared, with simple arrogance. The group buzzed, discussing his listed qualities, and from what they could tell, being able to sing C sharp was an immense accomplishment, worthy of mention. Kavana spoke up, for the first time,

"Let's have a vote," his dark, breathy voice echoing over the commotion. Various noises of agreement rang out, and the boys once again chattered amongst themselves. From what they could decipher, the only considerable amount of intelligence yet to be shown rested with Porkchop, but of course, this was carefully ignored. Jack, with his outgoing personality, seemed to be the obvious leader, but there was something about Danny that seemed to make him seem more trustworthy. Maybe it was the maturity he seemed to possess, the stillness and pureness of his smile, or maybe it was the object of power that rested in his hands, the instrument that had called them together.

"Alright," he said, "Who wants Hugh for chief then?"

His group raised their hands dutifully, and some, rather resentfully. Danny counted the hands.

"Okay...who wants me?"  
The rest raised their hands, which was the majority of the gathered. There was no need to count, and Danny turned to Hugh, his face sympathetic and rather sheepish,

"I guess I'm the leader, then." Hugh's freckles disappeared in a blush of discomfiture.

"'Course, your group belongs to you. They can be...Scavengers, or Hunters, or Guards. Whatever you want them to be," he spoke hurriedly, for he could see that by winning he was losing whatever hope of friendship they had. Hugh considered the options for a moment, before saying decidedly,

"Hunters. They'll be hunters." Some of the boys looked confused at this proposition, for becoming a hunter is something very unfamiliar to the traditional English schoolboy.

"Well, that's sorted, then," said Danny, with a touch of humor, before continuing, "Now, we ought to do some scouting. Figure out where are resources are, right? So, three of us will go on an expedition. I'll go, and Hugh, and..." he trailed off, considering all the eager, hopeful faces that stared up at him. Glancing around, he finally settled on one, "and Gavin.' The boys surrounding him giggled and elbowed him, and Gavin laughed slightly, pulling himself up. The three boys nodded at one another, a gesture of acknowledgment, and fell into lign, walking towards the door. Porkchop blundered along behind them. Danny closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled exasperatedly,

"Look, Porkchop, we've got enough," he said pleadingly, as if begging him to just turn around and leave them alone. He spoke to him as one speaks to a clingy younger sibling, one who follows you and your companions around, and all you really want them to do is, well, get lost, even though you feel bad about it, all the same.

"Come on, Danny-"

"We don't need you," hissed Hugh, bluntly, "much less want you."

Porkchop blushed and gulped, the hurt look back in his eyes, and Danny winced slightly, but his own pleading look stayed.

"Just go back, Porkchop. Keep an eye on 'em, okay? That's your job."

Porkchop grumbled angrily to himself and waddled back to the other group, where he wandered off to stand in the corner by himself. Danny exhaled breathily, and jogged to catch up with the others without a backwards glance.

**A/N: **Remember..

Reviews are love, and I _know_ you love me.


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